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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121289">I Wish You Were a Monster</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Hurt, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Beta Read, POV Steve Rogers, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Pedophilia, Self-Hatred, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:06:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,220</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121289</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve has a terrible secret. One he'll never act upon. He never acts on these desires, but he struggles with them, because he knows how wrong they are.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers &amp; Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>91</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Wish You Were a Monster</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>During the war it hadn't been an issue. Much. Whenever the guys brought out pinups, Steve would flush with embarrassment and look away. They teased him. Thought he was very traditional or very spiritual.</p>
<p>And then they'd show him pictures of their kids at home.</p>
<p>They didn't know.</p>
<p>But it had been easier, in some ways. The war didn't give him a lot of opportunities for introspection. When his life was in danger, when his body moved from pure muscle memory and his mind was caught up making split second decisions that could mean the lives or deaths of the men under his command, he could forget everything. For a moment.</p>
<p>Blissful were the nights he could fall into bed so tired he didn't have time to think or to dream.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>Sometimes he missed the war.</p>
<p>It was easier to be Captain America day in and day out in the battlefield, fighting for what he knew to be right. It was harder to be asked to publicity events involving Summer Reading Programs in inner city schools with so many children who absolutely adored and trusted him, the hero.</p>
<p>It was torture. He should have said no. He'd wanted to say no. But he was in control. Men who were attracted to women -- to adults -- were able to control themselves. To refuse to act on attraction. He could do it, too. He had to do it. He would always have to do it.</p>
<p>The kids needed him. He did not need the kids.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>Steve lived in fear of meeting someone who saw through him as if he were made of glass, who looked at him and knew the kind of desires he had, no matter how Steve struggled to keep them under lock and key. But it was an irrational fear. Paranoia.</p>
<p>Until it happened.</p>
<p>Maybe Steve should have seen it coming. After all, he worked with a couple of geniuses.</p>
<p>In some ways, Steve could empathize with Banner. He knew what it was like to be at the mercy of something you couldn't help, but you were ultimately responsible for. He knew what it was to have a monster locked away inside. If anyone saw the darkness in him, it would have been him.</p>
<p>Halfway through the event he realized he had picked up a shadow. It was Stark.</p>
<p>Banner was focused inward. He had to be to maintain control. Maybe Banner had always been that way or maybe he'd been forced to change, like Steve had changed in his late adolescence. But Stark was not so encumbered. He looked outwards, and he saw. Steve could tell the moment their eyes met over the children that Stark saw.</p>
<p>Steve forced himself not to panic. He carried on, ignoring the prickly sensation on the back on his neck that lasted, unbroken, for the rest of the event.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.</p>
<p>"I'm watching you."</p>
<p>They were alone. Stark waited until they were alone.</p>
<p>"And every moment you are in the Tower, Jarvis will be watching you. You have no privacy here."</p>
<p>Steve didn't say anything. He sensed Stark wasn't finished.</p>
<p>Stark poured himself a generous glass of bourbon. His eyes never left Steve. "I don't know if you've done anything. I don't have evidence. I've never even heard any rumors about it."</p>
<p>"I've never done anything," Steve told him levelly, even as in his chest his heart was palpitating in a way that hadn't happened since before the serum.</p>
<p>Stark's eyes narrowed. Steve answering his unvoiced accusation confirmed it. They both knew it. "... Rumors like that tend to stick, even after you're gone," Stark said, his voice utterly flat. Steve knew he was going to be researching it anyway. "But, I even think you're planning on acting, I am going to shut you down. Hard."</p>
<p>Stark's eyes were cold. And suddenly Steve saw through him as clearly as he had seen through Steve.</p>
<p>Dear god. How old had he been?</p>
<p>The moment Stark realized what had happened, what he had given away, his entire face went blank. When he came back to himself a split second later, his eyes had gone from cold to furious. "I don't have any evidence," Stark bit out. "So for now, this stays between us, so long as you stay away from kiddie events."</p>
<p>Stark didn't have to tell him what he would do if he did find evidence.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>It was less horrible than Steve imagined, but it was still horrible.</p>
<p>Stark withdrew. They had been getting to know each other slowly since Steve accepted Stark's offer of his own floor at the Tower, where he stayed occasionally, but all that evaporated. Steve couldn't resent Stark for it, but Steve knew so few people here even casually, the loss of one hurt.</p>
<p>But in a way, he was grateful to Stark.</p>
<p>Steve had lived through his ultimate fear and survived it. Not that he doesn't still fear exposure. It still woke him in the middle of the night, almost as much as his memories of the war did.</p>
<p>But now someone knew. Steve had been carrying this secret with him for years and at times it felt like a heavier burden than he could bear. Just knowing there was someone out there who knew who he really was under the cowl lessened the burden somehow, even if they despised him.</p>
<p>But Stark didn't despise him. At least, Steve didn't think so. It was difficult to tell. He might have just been playing normal so the others don't pick up on the rift that had opened up between them, but Tony didn't become cruel or angry. He acted naturally in the presence of friends. If it was just the two of them, Stark would leave after a only few moments, but he usually did Steve the courtesy of coming up with an excuse.</p>
<p>Stark just didn't trust him. Steve worried about the next time they are in the field together.</p>
<p>A week after the event, Steve was in the garage working on his motorcycle when Stark walked in. Before he could walk right back out, Steve stopped him with a question. "Can you still follow my orders?"</p>
<p>Stark smiled the kind of smile that didn't reach the eyes. "I am excellent at compartmentalization. I'll be as good as I ever was."</p>
<p>After he left, Steve looked up compartmentalization to see if it meant what it sounded like it meant. He didn't know if Tony was being honest with him, or even with himself, but Steve had no choice but to trust him. In a group like the Avengers, he couldn't ask Stark to be removed over a personal conflict. The only choice would be to leave himself, and he couldn't do that. The Avengers let him do good even in this world he was struggling to understand. The Avengers was the only familiar thing he had.</p>
<p>And Stark could have taken it from him if he'd really wanted. All it took was a rumor. Steve had seen it happen before. With Stark 's understanding of the new face of mass media in this century, he easily could destroy Captain America without a single substantiated fact.</p>
<p>But he didn't. That had to mean something.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>Steve made the Tower his permanent residence. Stark never revoked his passcode for the building or withdrew his offer to allow Steve to stay. They rarely saw each other, even as Steve spent more and more time there. He hoped he wasn't putting Stark out of his own home, but Stark never said anything about it.</p>
<p>If Tony was not going to take back his offer, then Steve was going to take advantage of it. And it wasn't because his floor at the Tower was easily the most luxurious living space Steve had ever occupied. It was because what Stark had said that first day never really left Steve. He didn't have privacy at the Tower.</p>
<p>Out there, in the world, Steve always had to be on guard. Was he crossing a line without realizing it? Was he thinking about doing something that would cost him his soul? Could he stop himself the way he had stopped himself so many times before?</p>
<p>But there weren't any children here. Just Jarvis. Watching him the way he always watched himself.</p>
<p>No privacy. Like the barracks back in the war.</p>
<p>He slept better than he had in a long time.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>It was by accident that Steve discovered that his passcode allowed him up to what Stark made clear were his personal floors. The Avengers had been given an open invitation to visit and to use most of the faculties. There was only one floor Stark kept completely private, which presumably had his bedroom, along with whatever else Stark and Miss. Potts didn't want just anyone having free access to, outside of the labs which had their own separate security measures.</p>
<p>Somehow, Steve had just assumed Stark wouldn't want to see him. After all, he was currently the only Avenger living full time at the Tower. Banner was travelling. He hadn't said where and made it clear he didn't want anyone to ask. There wasn't any need to keep up appearances by letting Steve up there. But when Steve used his passcode in the elevator and hit the wrong floor by mistake, he was taken up to the first floor of what was Stark's Tower residence.</p>
<p>For a moment, he stared. Then the elevator doors started to close, and before Steve could think about what he was doing, he stopped them and got out.</p>
<p>He could just go back down. He had everything he needed between his own floor and the communal one all the Avengers' floors shared. But he didn't. He had never really made good on the invitation in the first place, and his curiosity drew him further inside and-- dear god, was that a Renoir?</p>
<p>Someone cleared their throat, and Steve whipped around.</p>
<p>Stark was staring back at him. His eyes were red and unfocused, but from the shadows under his eyes it looked like a lack of sleep rather than overindulgence. He was dressed in jeans and an undershirt stained with what looked like engine grease. He was listing a little to the side. "Hey."</p>
<p>Completely at a loss what to do or say, Steve's sense of propriety compelled him to say, "Good morning."</p>
<p>Stark followed Steve's line of sight. "That's new. It's only here until Pepper finds a better place for it," Stark said, gazing at the painting. "It's not really my style, and it doesn't really fit in here. We might lend it out, since it hasn't been on public display in decades. Personally I think Pepper just likes the hunt and won't admit, but..." Stark shrugged, as if allowing his girlfriend to spend what was probably more money than Steve could wrap his head around because she 'liked the hunt' was something perfectly natural.</p>
<p>The whole exchanged amounted to more words than they'd spoken together alone in months. Steve had no idea how to react to such apparent normalcy.</p>
<p>While Steve gathered his thoughts, Stark started to walk off down the hallway. "Are you staying?" he asked. "I'm too wired to sleep. I'm going to watch a movie."</p>
<p>They watched a movie called Alien. Stark fell asleep. Steve didn't sleep all night.</p>
<p>Things weren't the way they had been. And what Steve was tentatively beginning to think of as their friendship wasn't normal. He didn't know if Tony had any normal relationships. But they were getting better.</p>
<p>So Steve wasn't sure what possessed him to risk it all by telling Tony, "I can't help it," except the fact he had no one else to tell.</p>
<p>Tony's eyes snapped over to him. He knew exactly what Steve was talking about. Steve was sure he was about to get up and leave. Steve wouldn't have stopped him.</p>
<p>But Tony just stared at him as if waiting for Steve to continue.</p>
<p>"I started to... to have these thoughts when I was about 17," Steve said before he lost his nerve. "I tried to ignore it, tried not to think about it, but --"</p>
<p>"Don't." Tony's voice was strained. "Don't tell me you were born this way."</p>
<p>"I don't want this." Steve would do anything, give anything to change his desires. Tony had to understand. "Who would choose this?"</p>
<p>"Don't," Tony snarled. "I am fucking sick of hearing about how fucking natural it all is from... from sick, fucked up predator scumbags, because it's not."</p>
<p>"I... I am sick--" Steve started, just to be cut off again.</p>
<p>"No. Don't say it. Don't be one of them," Tony said, getting up from his chair, unable to hold in his agitation. "Don't you see? Don't you get it? They say they were born that way, that it's natural, like that justifies-- "</p>
<p>"Tony, I'm not--" Tony seemed to be talking about something more specific than ... than people like Steve, but Tony wouldn't even pause.</p>
<p>" They try to set themselves up as the ones who are the victims, that they are being called sick when it's all just natural. Like they are the next civil rights movement waiting to happen. But they're not." Tony's breathing was hitched, and his pacing had ended up with him the corner of the room, braced against one of the walls, glaring at Steve with an undisguised hatred he'd never seen on Tony's face before.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"You're not. You're nothing like me, and I'm sure as hell not anything like you."</p>
<p>Tony's words struck him like daggers, but the desperation in Tony's eyes made Steve realize that somehow he'd pulled open an old wound.</p>
<p>They stared at each other in silence. Steve was too afraid of destroying whatever it was that had drawn them back together to leave, but too hurt and confused to know how to start to fix it. Things had changed so much since he'd crashed in the Arctic, Tony might as well be speaking another language for all Steve understood the things he'd left unsaid. He'd had briefings to catch him up to date, but Tony couldn't be referring to the civil rights movement that--</p>
<p>"You're queer," Steve said the moment the possibility occurred to him. Tony bristled and Steve realized the moment he'd said it was the wrong word to use. "Gay."</p>
<p>"Bisexual, actually," Tony said, head held high in defiance, as if he was daring Steve to challenge him about it. "Pepper and I are very happy with each other, usually multiple times a day."</p>
<p>Every line in Tony's body was full of tension, and Steve wasn't sure if he'd be willing to listen to anything Steve said wound up like this. But Steve had to try. He got up from his own seat. "You're not sick."</p>
<p>"I know that," Tony snapped, but Steve wasn't sure he did.</p>
<p>"I am," Steve said, and he managed to silence any remark Tony had to make about that with a look, his eyes watering with tears unshed. "I'm sick, and I can't help it, but I would never use that to justify things like... like were done to you."</p>
<p>Tony blanched. "You don't know anything--"</p>
<p>"I don't," Steve agreed, but dancing around the issues wasn't helping either one of them. "And you didn't have to tell me just like I never had to tell you."</p>
<p>"You're not sick like I am, Tony," Steve said again, because he didn't think Tony had really heard him the first time. He knew better than to think it was going to solve anything, but it was something Tony deserved to hear.</p>
<p>Tony let out a long breath. "Why did you even stir this shit up, Steve?"</p>
<p>" I wanted you to understand."</p>
<p>"I don't want to understand." It was a plea, or at least as close as Tony Stark ever got to one.</p>
<p>Steve just nodded, his throat suddenly too tight to speak.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>Things got better again.</p>
<p>Tony couldn't be the person Steve wanted him to be, but it wasn't fair to expect him to be. Steve could still appreciate what he had. The tension was less thick between them, and if they weren't friends, then they were at least something like it. Tony would never trust him completely, but then, Steve had never trusted himself completely either. Not when it came to his desires.</p>
<p>He was still the only other Avenger living permanently at the Tower. The others came and went as they passed through New York. None of the other floors remained empty for very long.</p>
<p>The others got used to leaving messages for Tony with Steve and vice versa. So when Banner called to ask Steve to go down and check to see if Tony was in his lab, ignoring his calls, it was nothing unusual. He would have asked Jarvis where Tony was, but when Tony didn't want to be disturbed, he instructed Jarvis to tell people he was sleeping, out flying, or in Malibu. The only way to know for sure was to physically go down and check.</p>
<p>Steve went down to Tony's personal lab, entered the passcode he'd been given for access into the research area. When he opened the door to the sound of silence, he knew Tony wasn't there. Even if he wasn't blasting that god awful noise of his, he was rarely up to anything quiet.</p>
<p>Still, Steve was nothing if not through, so he called out Tony's name and went to check the bathroom and the cot. "Jarvis -- where is Tony?"</p>
<p>"He is out flying, Captain Rogers."</p>
<p>Steve sighed. He could be literally anywhere.</p>
<p>He turned to head back up to his floor. Though he could ask Jarvis to place a call to Banner from here, Steve much preferred the weight of the 'vintage' phone in his room. Since the matter wasn't urgent, he could afford to indulge himself.</p>
<p>But something caught his eye.</p>
<p>A prototype to his shield was just sitting there, sticking out from under a rack. Steve went over to take a look, not thinking Tony would mind. After all, he'd let Tony poke and prod at the real deal.</p>
<p>Steve pulled it out from where it was stowed. He hadn't seen this thing since the beginning of his tour of duty. He turned it over in his hands, unable to help a smile remembering all the crazy ideas Howard had come up with when the best solution of all was the simplest. That's when he noticed the case the shield prototype had been sitting on was labeled. Property of Howard Stark.</p>
<p>Steve glanced around. It wasn't a secret Tony and his father had had their problems. Publically Tony would speak fondly of him, but privately... The man was Howard's son, and this was the first thing he'd ever seen in his possession that he'd kept of his father's. There wasn't so much as a photo.</p>
<p>He ran his hand over the case, a fine layer of dust coming off onto his fingers. Steve had known Howard. Not terribly well, and not for very long, but he had known him, back in another life he could never go home to.</p>
<p>But that didn't entitle him to whatever was in this case. Tony was Howard's son, and whatever was in here was his to share. But Steve was feeling nostalgic. What could it really hurt?</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>Damn his curiosity.</p>
<p>At first there had been notebooks. Lots of notebooks, filled with equations and diagrams Steve couldn't begin to fathom. A Captain America #1 comic inside a briefcase surprised him.</p>
<p>But then... there were the pictures.</p>
<p>They were innocent. And that was part of the problem. Part of the allure. Steve swallowed. He knew he was looking at Tony. His eyes... Tony had to have inherited his mother's eyes, because Steve had never met anyone with eyes like his. And these photos are all from when he was eight... early nine. Steve was good at telling ages. Too good.</p>
<p>He knew immediately he should put them down and close the case and forget he'd ever let some wistful longing for the past lead him down this path. If Tony came in here and saw him looking at these...</p>
<p>God, he'd been so beautiful.</p>
<p>No. Stop. He couldn't think it. He couldn't betray Tony that way.</p>
<p>He couldn't stop himself.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>Steve flipped through the rest quickly, not allowing himself to linger on any one image. He told himself he was looking for a picture of Howard. It had been so long, he was forgetting his friend's face. But all of the pictures are of Tony.</p>
<p>And then it struck him. He was holding a large stack of photos. And Tony, he didn't age that much in them. They had to have been taken within a few months of each other.</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>With sweating palms, he looked over them again. They didn't seem as innocent this time. There were candid shots, yes. Tony at the beach, in his swimsuit... Tony playing something that looked like water polo... Tony at some kind of track and field event for kids.</p>
<p>And then there were the ones where Tony was looking at the camera, arranged to look natural but posed all the same. Sprawled out over the floor or in a chair. And his eyes, his beautiful, dark, expressive eyes. They were so lost.</p>
<p>It couldn't be.</p>
<p>Tony didn't have a single picture of his father anywhere in his house. But his father had pictures of him. There are more, in boxes. Steve doesn't take them out, only opens them to confirm what they are. The boxes are labeled with ages.</p>
<p>No. No, no, no. Howard couldn't have been like he was. Steve would have been able to tell. Steve would have known. Steve knew something happened to Tony, but this, this is too horrible, this just couldn't be what it looked like.</p>
<p>Then he came across the film reel, and his heart just stopped. It was in a black case, and it was unlabeled.</p>
<p>Setting up the projector was a blur.</p>
<p>Tony sat on the bed, the age he was in the photos. There was an older man sitting with him. Talking to him in low tones. Reaching out to take his hand.</p>
<p>Steve felt sick. He needed to stop the film now.</p>
<p>He reached up, and put his finger on the switch, but his shaking hand wouldn't obey his commands to flip it. The man on screen wasn't Howard. The build, the hair color, it was all wrong.</p>
<p>But Steve had seen enough. In all the years he had struggled with his desires, he had never allowed himself to watch a film like this had to be. He never took the kinds of pictures Howard had. He never even drew things like it in his sketchbooks. It was wrong. And it terrified him. If he crossed that line even once, would he ever be able to go back?</p>
<p>From the projection, Tony looked at him. No, at the camera. He was confused, his eyes silently asking for help as the man sitting next to him started to unbutton his shirt. Steve tasted bile, even as he unwillingly felt the first flush of arousal as more of Tony's skin was revealed.</p>
<p>The camera moved. Someone was holding it. Someone...</p>
<p>Howard.</p>
<p>Dear god.</p>
<p>Time slowed down, and Steve wasn't able to look away, wasn't even able to move. Every fiber in him screamed at him to do something, to stop what was happening, but it was years in the past. He could flip the switch, but it wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't save the child. It wouldn't save Tony. He watched in horror as the man whispered lies to Tony while Tony looked away and tried to turn in on himself to keep the man's hands off of him.</p>
<p>Tears wet Steve's cheeks as Tony's reluctance became resistance and the lies became something worse. When Tony screamed in pain the spell holding Steve still shattered. He lurched up from his seat and to the bathroom, where he fell on his knees and retched. When finally stopped, he started to sob huge body wracking sobs. He cried without restraint, the way he had when he had been a boy.</p>
<p>But the sounds of his grief couldn't blot out the sounds coming from the projector in the next room, and Steve put his hands over his ears, tasting more bile on the back of his throat.</p>
<p>That wasn't what he wanted. In any of his dreams or fantasies, the ones he couldn't stop, it was never like that. He could never do those things. He could never hurt anyone that way, especially not... especially not someone special to him.</p>
<p>Steve had thought he had known what predators would do, what people who acted on their desires would do, but he had been naive. Those men might have been sick like him, but there was something even more twisted and broken in them, that they could lack even a shred of conscience or compassion. Steve would rather die than do the things they did. He would rather castrate himself. He could never do that to a child.</p>
<p>He was hoarse by the time he got a hold of himself. The awful sounds from the other room had long fallen silent. Blindly, he reached up and flushed away his mess before staggering to his feet and back out into the lab.</p>
<p>The projector was gone. Tony was sitting in its place, a half empty bottle of scotch on the work bench in front of him and a glass in his hand.</p>
<p>"Get out."</p>
<p>Steve left.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>The first thing Steve did when he got to his floor was call Pepper. Thankfully she was only as far as DC. He couldn't remember the call very clearly, he might have been in shock, but whatever he did say must have worried her enough to drop everything and come home to the Tower.</p>
<p>The second thing he did was start packing.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>He drove too fast for too long. Super soldier reflexes kept him from killing himself or anyone else.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>Steve came home. His passcode worked. It took him up to his floor. It no longer worked to take him to the research levels or any of Tony's floors.</p>
<p>That night, when he went to sleep, he had a new nightmare to add to his collection. When he woke up with tears in his eyes, it was to Tony screaming. He was sick again in the bathroom.</p>
<p>Worse were the nights he woke up needing a cold shower. But those nights had always been the worst. At least he could wake up from a nightmare.</p>
<p>-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-</p>
<p>Steve walked out one morning and Tony was there, sitting at his table.</p>
<p>"You're not a monster," Tony said.</p>
<p>That wasn't what Steve was expecting to hear. That was the last thing he was expecting to hear. "Tony..."</p>
<p>"Jarvis told me."</p>
<p>Words died in Steve's throat. No privacy. Tony had been upfront about it in the beginning. Steve had come to rely on it.</p>
<p>"I was upstairs watching you on the security camera feed after he told me you found the pictures."</p>
<p>Horrified, Steve had to ask him, "Why didn't you stop me?"</p>
<p>"I had to know," Tony said, watching his hand he rotated his wrist idly against the table, looking like he was missing a rocks glass to swirl. "All this time, I've had to ask myself... if you never got frozen, what would have happened? You knew my father. He clearly was a fan of yours. Do you see where I'm going with this?" He looked up at Steve. "It could have been you."</p>
<p>"It couldn't."</p>
<p>After seeing what he saw, Steve knew he never could have acted on his desires the way those men had. That reel would haunt him for the rest of his life, but it gave him some measure of peace, of security, knowing that in spite of his desires, he couldn't let a child be hurt.</p>
<p>"It couldn't," Tony agreed after a few moments. "So. Congratulations on being human. You still can't go to kiddie events."</p>
<p>"I know," Steve said. It wouldn't be appropriate. Even with the best of intentions, a look, a touch, it could damage. And above all, he didn't want to risk making his desires an obsession.</p>
<p>It fell quiet. Steve sat down across from Tony.</p>
<p>"... I wish you were a monster." Tony said after awhile. "It would make it easier. I'd know how to deal with you then."</p>
<p>He reached up to rub his eyes, looking utterly exhausted. "... and with my father. Because if you made a choice, then he made a choice. If he wasn't compelled... then he chose that. There were options and he chose that one," Tony said, his voice faint.</p>
<p>"Tony..." Steve didn't know what to say, where to even begin.</p>
<p>"Don't whisper like you think I'm going to break." Tony shook his head. "I'm fine. Well, maybe not fine, but it happened a long time ago mostly I have.. come to terms with it. As much as I can. It's just that sometimes... certain things make it come back in sharp relief."</p>
<p>Steve knew exactly what might have done that. "I'm sorry. For opening the box. For everything."</p>
<p>"Yeah," he agreed softly. "For everything." Tony opened his eyes again and looked at Steve, evaluating. "I'm not sorry about the box, though."</p>
<p>Steve didn't regret it, either. Tony shouldered his burden, and he could help shoulder Tony's.</p>
<p>"Why did you keep that stuff?" Steve asked. At the look that crossed Tony's face, Steve quickly added, "You don't have to explain."</p>
<p>But Tony did. "I only found out about the film a couple of years ago. If it had been right after his death, I would have burned it."</p>
<p>He sighed, staring out at the wall. "The sad truth is if people found out, my image would suffer. There would be speculation about why I never came forward, about how it was the root of my entire sexual history and maybe my entire public life, and rumors would follow 'like father, like son.' But when I think about destroying them... I can't. I hate that they got away with it. I can't destroy the only evidence there is, even if I can't ever let anyone see it or even let anyone know it exists."</p>
<p>They. They got away with it. Steve hesitated. "The other man..."</p>
<p>"Dead. I killed him. Or Pepper did. But she was only doing what I told her to do." Tony sounded remorseful. "And don't look at me like that, it wasn't a vigilante thing. It was self defense." He closed his eyes. "... if Coulson were still here, he would tell you. He was there. He helped cover it up."</p>
<p>A moment passed in respectful silence. Steve had barely gotten a chance to meet the man.</p>
<p>"I'll always wonder if there were others besides me for him," Tony said, his eyes downcast. "...or if my father just gave him an opportunity too good to refuse. I never heard anything about it, but I'm too much of a coward to look."</p>
<p>Steve reached out and took Tony's hand. Tony looked up, startled out of his thoughts. "It's not your fault."</p>
<p>"I don't think it's yours, either."</p>
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